keithb7

Happy Thanksgiving to my American Mopar friends. Hope you have a great time with your loved ones. Up here we have our Thanksgiving in early October. The harvest has to done by then else it becomes perma-frost. Mrs and I spent the day blowing-in 26" of new pink insulation in our attic. We went from an R6 to an R50 rating. We did it ourselves. Momma was in the attic running the hose, distributing the fiberglass. I was down on the ground feeding bags into the blower machine. 50 bags and 3 hours later we were done and high-fiving each other. About 1/2 way into the job Momma did mis-step and slipped off a truss. She slammed down through the brand new ceiling drywall she just completed last summer. Now we have a new hole in the living room ceiling for Santa to come down through. She bruised a rib of two but it never slowed her down. She pushed on and we completed the job. I took her out to her favourite dinner later. A nice little reward is in order. A proper ceiling repair will likely wait until the new year.

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That is quite the shop. I covet thy neighbor's goods!

Ignorant drivers can bother me occasionally. I especially notice a ton of jacked up 4x4 trucks that never leave the pavement, with ultra bright headlights. 99% of the time I don't let it annoy me. The odd time I get a little peeved. I never make a responsive aggressive move though. You just don't know what the mental state is of the other person behind the wheel. I get out of their way and let them get on to however-it-is they want to kill themselves. They get their up-commins' at some point. Someone else with a brain just as small or smaller, with a brick on their shoulder, will put them in their place eventually. I smile imagining how they may get their karma some day.

Maybe watch this video through. It may add something to ponder while you are troubleshooting your carb.

Definitely get that oil pump bled and primed. Then after that, once installed, pull the coil wire and crank the engine over until you see oil pressure climbing on the gauge. Then you can proceed to let the engine fire and run.

At my place of employment we rebuild large diesel engines and powertrain components. We do spIn-up the powershift transmissions and torques on a large hydraulic test bench. We bring hydraulic pressures up to operating specs. We shift through all the gears. Test all the pressures, reliefs, shift valves, solenoids etc. Your cold break-in sounds similar. I’ve personally never heard of it being done on a fresh engine rebuild. The fresh engine rebuilds that we do, we pressure lube everything. Soak everything down inside there, forcing oil through all the oil galleries. Then we dyno them. We break them in, then we full-load test and tune them to maximum rated horsepower and torque. We recently got new engine dyno that can handle 2,750 HP. A big engine for us is the 5,187 ci engine. (85L). Its fun to stick your head in the dyno booth when one of those bad boys in under full load. 4 large turbos wailing. I glance at the monitoring gages. The fuel burn rate is about 1L of fuel per minute per cylinder. Its a 16 cylinder. In total that’s 4.22 US gallons per minute for that portion of the dyno test.

Yay! Congrats on all the great engine rebuild progress. I am questioning the need for a cold break-in. Did you apply that super slippery oil to all your crank, rod and cam bearings?

My wife and I just ended a week-long trip to Arizona. We flew into Phoenix. Picked up a rental RV van and hit the roads. We drove and toured as much as we could fit into a week. We had a fantastic time! We met very friendly, helpful pleasant people everywhere we went. We went north to hike Sedona. Down to Bisbee and Douglas. Caving in Coronado and Kartchner. East over to Wilcox where we tipped a few back with the locals in their cowboy dive-bar, Rex’s. Chiricahua hiking. Heading north again travelling through Why and Ajo. And lots more. We saw so many great places and things but best of all was the people. Kind. Appreciative. Welcoming. From our BLM campsites to the drivers at the truck stops and all points in the between. Living like nomads on the road in our van for a week showed us the real, happy, generous people of America. God-bless America, we love y’all. Special mention to the truckers doing an important job and staying so friendly. I realize now, after I turned off mass-media and all the news doom-and-gloom for a week, I saw the big heart of a really great country, open up wide.

I’ll play along. My current rig. 1998 2500 Dodge with a Cummins 24 valve 2 cyl 5.9L diesel engine. Maintenance and repairs are done by me. i’ve owned it for 5 1/2 years. Engine is stock at about 190 hp if I recall. Lots of good usable torque, yet pales in comparison to modern diesels. Loud, skull-rattling stock engine clatter. But she’s pretty tough. Reliable and gets the job done. Towing package factory install including transmission cooler and extra rear leaf springs and block. Fuel economy is excellent when considering total weight that is rolling down the hi-way.

Some nightmare examples here of new (expensive) trucks. My 25 yr old Cummins equipped truck keeps on ticking. You might imagine, I have little interest in upgrading it.

These rear plugs....As discussed above. PITB.

https://youtu.be/J5Wbyengb8U?si=Biko9ILXnYTqnwMp

Speaking of retirement: I’m some years away yet but it is at the forefront of my mind a lot. I agree with 4 seasons. I like ‘em. In particular spring and fall are the best for working outside. Summer here is a bit too hot honestly. Winter pretty good. I sometimes complain about snow removal duties. Yet I love the gas powered tools I own, maintain and use to clear the snow. Good excuse to own 2 snow blowers and an ATV with a blade! I’ve spent the last couple years researching retirement finances and planning. I’m really interested in it now as retirement is getting closer. I’ve learned a ton about investing. We have been squirrelling savings for decades. Just letting the money work for us passively. Lately I have taken-on a bigger role in managing some of the finances myself. Maybe I will need YT ad revenue to keep us afloat! Lol.

I have put a fair bit of time into the YT video creating thing. Mainly when I had decent content to share. I had Mopar projects to accomplish. Lately I’ve been just driving my cars. Enjoying them. Reaping all the benefits from my work. I’m not overly interested in fabricating YT content or drama for the sake of creating another video. If I actually need to work on one of my old Mopars, and have something half-decent to share on YT, I will. I’ll upload content. I’m not interested in buying more cars just to create more YT content. I believe some YT creators actually do that. I guess some folks want to make a living from YT. Sounds like a full time job! I already have one. Lol. At the risk of being called-out here, I kinda have my sights an a pre-1920 ish Model T. Someday when we’ve resettled down in the valley bottom here maybe. I’m not risking my life, up and down the steep hill here driving a flivver! Possibly having to drive up it in reverse. Lol. Now that would make good YT content. Watch me back-up the hill for 3 miles. ?

Iphone: Open the photo you just took. Take a screen shot of it by pushing power button and volume up button at the same time. (What button to use depends on what model iphone you have). It will save the new screen shot photo along with all your other photos. Yet it will be smaller in size. Upload new screen shot photo here, instead of original photo.

My fresh rebuild 237 ci engine initially netted me 105 psi at 2300 ft above sea level. Elevation makes a difference. 1000 miles later the engine made between 107-110 psi.

The engine does need to crank faster than "very slow" to get at least half decent compression readings. The carb needs to throttle wide open too. Remove all spark plugs when testing compression. Brushing away carbon from valve seats on a high mile engine, won't do much to help the valves seal. When a cylinder goes from 15 to 35 after you add oil, that tells me you may have piston ring issues or cylinder wall scoring issues.

Yes, very nice. I’m with your son. I’d rather ride in it than Mom’s new car. (Has nothing to do with her driving, I swear)

Piston #1 at TDC. Yet you could be mis-led as #6 is also at TDC at this point. One piston will be at TDC of the compression stroke , the other will be at TDC at the end of the exhaust stroke. You need to find out exactly which piston is at which point in the 4-stroke cycle. The tissue idea or ping pong ball, or your thumb on top of the spark plug hole will determine exactly which TDC position a piston is at. A piston traveling up, with both intake and exhaust valves closed will force air out of the spark plug hole. That is the position you need hone-in on. If a piston is traveling up and not blowing air out the spark plug hole, the exhaust valve for that cylinder is open. That particular piston is then on the exhaust stroke. This is not the TDC position you want to use for timing your spark. The spark for a cylinder must fire when the piston for that cylinder has created compression inside the cylinder. That only occurs 1 time in the 4 cycles of a 4 stroke engine. In this particular straight 6 engine #1 and #6 have the exact same throws on the crank shaft Meaning #1 an #6 piston will always be at the exact same position inside the cylinder. The only difference is the valve timing. The two cylinders are out 360 degrees of each other in the 720 degrees of a 4 stroke cycle. If you study the 4 strokes of an (engine, intake, compression, power, exhaust) you will see that 2 strokes make up 1 full 360 degree turn of the crankshaft. A single "stroke" is the piston traveling one direction fully up or fully down once. The crankshaft must rotate 2 times or 720 degrees for all 4 strokes to be complete. The cycle then repeats again over and over. The piston going to the very top of the cylinder 2x every 720 degrees of crank rotation. These 4 strokes, another way to think of it: - Stroke 1: Intake stroke, the piston goes down all the way to the bottom of the cylinder. Drawing in air and fuel. - Stroke 2: Piston goes back up for the compression stroke. Now you are at exactly TDC to set your spark timing. - Spark fires here now at this time. - Stroke 3: Combustion sends the piston back down to the bottom of cylinder. - Stroke 4: Intertia, along with the help of other cylinders firing, brings that piston back up to the top of the cylinder. Pushing the burnt gasses out of the cylinder, Piston is now at TDC again. - Start over at Stroke 1 again. Can you see how the piston will be at TDC 2 times in the engine cycle? Only 1 time there is fuel in the cylinder to fire. The spark has to fire in correct order of the list above. I often talk about how I like to 100% know an engine is at TDC to set the valves. Also if wanted set the ignition timing. When a piston is at TDC of compression stroke, both intake and exhaust valves are fully closed. You can confirm this by feeling the valve tappets. Wiggle them up and down. You can only move them by the amount the valve lash is set at. Only 1 time in the 4 stroke cycle are both valves perfectly closed, is during the compression stroke. This is the only time both valve tappets of 1 cylinder can both be wiggled up and down in their bores. When you determine #1 is at TDC of the compression stroke, take the distributor cap off. Where is the rotor pointing to? Take the rotor off. Look at the points and hexagon of the points ramp. A peak of the hexagon cam should be at it's apex and have the points pushed open now. At this point is where you set your points gap. Do so, then put rotor and cap back on. The spark plug wire going to #1 cylinder's spark plug goes into the cap hole, right over where the rotor pointer is currently sitting. Then working your way clockwise from #1 wire, insert wires 5, 3, 6, 2, 4 into their holes in the rotor. Follow each plug wire from the rotor to each spark plug. Make 100% sure they travel to the proper cylinder order as written. If you have a good battery, 6V going to a good coil, no ground shorts, a good condenser, points, plug wires and decent plugs, fuel in the cylinder, valves that seal at least somewhat, somewhat half decent compression, an open air intake passage through the carb, she'll fire. I hope this helps you.

Hear, hear. I had a similar experience in 2020 visiting Dave. . Dave has helped me several times as well. I’m fortunate to be in these circles, the great Mopar family.

I’m doubtful you have a fuel pump problem. The electric pump is generally more reliable long term versus the mechanical pump. You could check fuel pressure to confirm its within range. Does this car have the M5 semi-auto “Tip-Toe” shift transmission? I suspect so. Hi range top gear going up steep hill, expect flat performance. Kick it down to passing gear and let off the throttle a bit so its not revving so high. That’s pretty much all you get. Its a heavy car with relatively low compression, low HP engine. Probably a 251 ci engine I assume. You can check the engine’s state of tune and address it if needed. That might help improve power a bit. However, it will still perform mediocre compared to later model cars with bigger engines.

You can watch me test my generator output here with simple clamp meter/ Digital Multi-Meter. You can buy the tool here: https://www.amazon.com/UT210D-Digital-Current-Resistance-Capacitance/dp/B0753FY711/ref=sr_1_2?crid=187OIWIDDJUEX&keywords=uni-T+210D&qid=1693926590&sprefix=uni-t+210d%2Caps%2C319&sr=8-2 Works very well.

I am not aware of a way to date them. If in doubt replace them. Points, cap, rotor and condenser. Keep the condenser in your glovebox as a spare. The contact section of the points is likely not copper. Just a the arms may have an ore blend with some copper in them.

The little town of Nakusp BC. The old Mopars are easy to spot. This one is a Chrysler Windsor. Indicating a 6 cylinder, if I recall. I suspect 1948? I’m not dial’d-in on this era. I’ve heard them called “harmonica grill”. Rear suicide doors. The wheel chocks tell me the car probably has a semi-auto or fluid drive. No park position. Plus the parkbrake can’t be trusted. You look at ‘em the wrong way and they can snap off. Well anyway, my ‘53 was like that. Thought you might enjoy. I did.